Ancestral Roofs

"In Praise of Older Buildings"

Monday, April 1, 2013

polar fleece lined kayaks recommended

the old mill at Queensborough

Queensborough, Ontario has quite the reputation - for hospitality mixed with great whitewater kayaking - even on what promises to be a cool damp April weekend.The village participates enthusiastically in the Marmora and area Canoe and Kayak Festival (M.A.C.Fest), to be held this year on April 6 and 7th. Folks open their Black River-side properties to villagers and locals who paddle the river in its spring enthusiasm. And if that's not enough, once you arrive in the village (making a grand entrance over the dam pictured at left), the villagers offer yummy food, including their famous home-made pies.

the millpond - will look more inviting than this April 6/7

Here's a link to some video of kayakers arriving at the millpond last year. They look hungry don't they?

the old Thompson place (1845)

For more information, community boosters Elaine and Lud Kapusta welcome your calls at 613-473-1458. And while you're in the village, have a look at their superb Georgian/Neo-classical house, overlooking the millpond.

Great Architecture quotes

"The sins of the Architect are permanent sins" Frank Lloyd Wright, 1914

"In the end, we conserve only what we love. We will love only what we understand. We will understand only what we are taught." ~Baba Dioum, Senegalese poet (Posted in January on the ACO Acorn online)

"It is forbidden to disfigure external decorations on private buildings through modern additions and to spoil historic buildings in an important town out of avarice and the desire to make money." - Theodosius, Valentinianus, Arcadius (309 A.D.)

"It has been said that at its best, preservation engages the past in a conversation with the present over a mutual concern for the future" - William Murtagh (1988)

"Preservationists are the only people in the world who are invariably confirmed in their wisdom after the fact". - John Kenneth Galbraith (1979)

"A doctor can bury his mistakes but an architect can only advise his clients to plant vines" - Frank Lloyd Wright

"Architecture is the art of how to waste space" - Philip Johnson

"Architecture is frozen music" - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Photo Gallery

"Caught in passing"

Striker/Walmsley House 1868

Albert Street beauty

Fort William Collegiate Institute - "they don't make 'em like they used to"